


In A Warm and Quiet Place

by whip_pan



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Episode: s01e08 The Last Patrol, Gift Giving, M/M, Missing Scene, Pneumonia, Post-Commission Conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whip_pan/pseuds/whip_pan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The same atmosphere from the night before rose up between them, a hint at an intimacy that resisted definition and blossomed in a bedroom with a closed door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In A Warm and Quiet Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



> Thank you very much for the prompt! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And thanks to theonceandfuturecaptain for a wonderfully helpful beta job <3

As children, Carwood’s brother Robbie was more liable to get sick than him. He had been a fussy baby, always with a runny nose and crusty eyes. Once, only a few months after their father passed, when their mother was still confined to her hospital bed and the two of them were staying at Aunt Ruth’s - never mind that she didn’t have any children of her own, didn’t know what to do with two little boys - he got a bad case of the flu.

The doctor ordered Ruth to put cold compresses on his forehead to help break the fever, to keep him warm and give him lots of water. While she cared for him, Carwood stood in the hallway, listening to his brother snuffle and moan. She didn’t let Carwood into the room. He snuck in, when she left for a few moments to put dinner on, intending to give Robbie another blanket. But his body looked so little in the bed - a bed that was not a hospital bed but seemed near enough, with stiff white sheets and a periwinkle blanket smoothed over - that Carwood thought he looked dead already, ready to be wheeled down to the morgue. He was sure Robbie would die, which would probably kill their mother, and then Carwood would be all alone with Aunt Ruth, everyone else in his family gone.

His brother's fever broke in the morning. When Carwood saw him sitting up in bed, asking for breakfast, he felt shame, sick and sudden, and wished he never even entertained the thought.

This was the memory turning over in his mind as the hospital doctor looked him over in Haguenau. He knew there was no real correlation between that night and the nights he endured on the way to Haguenau, but the shame at his selfishness rose up now the same way it had then, pulsing like an old wound in the rain. He breathed shallower than he needed to, even though he felt well enough to risk more. Being sent off the line was not an option. Roe, who was hovering in the doorway, smiled when he coughed; it was a dry hack that didn’t immediately make him want to spit up phlegm. The doctor seemed impressed, if suspicious, when Carwood explained the remedy of schnapps and apple strudel. Roe smiled at him and said that Captain Speirs ought to be congratulated for combatting the worst case of pneumonia he’d seen in the war and coming out the victor.

After they left, Ron stopped by. He betrayed no sign he was thinking about the night before. Carwood felt a brief snatch of disappointment, which flew out of his mind entirely once Ron said that Jackson died, but everyone else made it through the patrol okay. They captured two Krauts, which Carwood supposed was worth it to the higher ups, but Ron spit out that sentence. Said he didn’t have much confidence that they knew anything useful. Regardless, Carwood needed to be there for the men. Second platoon was in shambles, if it hadn’t been already, and he was sure they would need someone to vent to.

Now, in the CP’s sitting room, he tried to comb back his hair with his fingers, wishing rather ridiculously that he looked a little better. But they all looked worse for wear, hair slicked with oil, shadows at their jaws, grubby in a way that army showers couldn’t fix. Dick and Lewis and Ron walked in, followed by that new officer, Jones, and Harry, who grinned at him.

He wrote his family about the commission, but naturally received no reply yet. It felt strange to even call himself an officer; he didn’t really feel like one and wasn’t sure he ever would. But he still shared the news, because it was the sort of thing you wrote home about – not about the wounds, not about wearing dirt on your skin like the scummy film on top of ponds, not about the friends you watched die – just the accomplishments and reassurances of love. At any rate, he could already see his mother’s response, written in her loopy handwriting. It was one that would pain her to put on paper, but that she’d feel she should say: Your father would be proud.

Winters kept it short, for which he was grateful. He didn’t really need any of the fanfare. He shook everyone’s hands, and then Ron pushed him back gently, into the next room. They walked through to a library, the room that had surely been the pinnacle of the house, but now surrendered to the chaos of war that Carwood had recently stopped giving much thought – books mostly on the floor, photographs smashed, seat cushions ripped.

Ron leaned up against one of the nice walnut bookcases, tilting his head as he considered Carwood. The midmorning sunlight seeping in through the broken window lit his face, replacing the dogged alertness with a glimpse of how he must look when in a position to care more about his appearance - younger, and handsome in an effortless sort of way. His inky hair and eyes contrasted sharply with his pale skin, except for where his beard grew in lightly.

Not for the first time, Carwood felt like he had missed something. Ron was a step or ten ahead of him, and now he had to fight to keep up.

“Congratulations,” Ron said. “You earned it. You’ve been an officer in all but name for a long time now.”

That was the second time Ron gave him such a compliment. It felt the same as the first, like he didn’t really deserve it, but he knew Ron well enough now to know that he wouldn’t say something he didn’t believe.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Here.” Ron took a small pouch out of his jacket pocket and tossed it to Carwood.

He pulled out a watch. It had a dark leather armband, its wide face backed in steel, the lugs curved like teardrops. The numbers formed a neat ring around the Rolex label.

“It’s a Rolex,” Ron said unnecessarily. “Same brand as mine.” He rolled up his sleeve to show Carwood his own. “It’s mechanical, so you’ll need to wind it, but I like them better that way. They’re steadier. More dependable.”

“Did you steal it?” Carwood said, unthinking. Then he flushed, mortified for asking that question instead of thanking Ron.

But Ron just took a step closer, smiling a little. He plucked the watch from Carwood’s fingers and wound it for him. “No,” he said. “I bought it off an old French jeweler. Paid double for it, he was so happy to get the business.” The watch clicked and came to life. “Something told me you’d like it better that way.”

“Thank you,” Carwood said, finding his manners despite his chagrin, “but this is really too much.”

Ron shrugged. “Every officer ought to have a good watch.”

“Still.”

“Give me your wrist.”

Carwood held out his arm. Ron put on the watch, their skin brushing, each touch a little jolt.

“Excellent,” Ron said approvingly as they looked down at it. It was a cool, unusual weight against Carwood’s skin; his old watch had broken ages ago, the face smashed in, and he’d thrown it along the side of the road somewhere in France.

“Sir,” he tried again, “this must have been expensive.”

“You know, you can call me Ron.”

“Ron,” he started, but Ron cut him off.

“My father gave me this,” he said, holding up his arm, where his watch ticked in tandem, “when I graduated from the Officers’ Academy. We aren’t all that close, but I was happy to get it from him.” He held Carwood’s gaze, hesitated before continuing. “I know I’m not your father, but I thought you’d appreciate someone commemorating such an accomplishment. So take it, Carwood. Please.”

Carwood’s breath caught in his throat. He thought of his father from time to time, of course. He was old enough when he died to remember what he was like. When he’d volunteered for the Airborne, he’d wished his father were there to hear the news. He had wanted to tell him, hey, Pop, I’m going to jump out of airplanes.

He blinked once, then again, quickly. His chest ached. He wanted to cough. He realized Ron was looking at him intently, face carefully blank except for his mouth, which was turned down at the edges.

“Thank you,” he said again, unsure if he could manage much more. He felt aware of the way they stood together, their breathing, their watches marching forward in tandem. Snatches of the night before ran through his mind: Ron insisting he take the bed, bringing him a bottle of schnapps that tasted like fire in his throat and a crumbly pastry that got all over the blankets. Ron’s warm arm thrown over his shoulder, a rough hand rubbing his chest when his body seized up in preparation for a coughing fit. Carwood wasn’t sure how to define it; nothing about it felt paternal, but his feverish brain seized upon it as intimacy. He remembered smelling sharp cologne and wondering if Ron poked through the other bedrooms. He had meant to ask him about it. Ron left sometime in the night, once the patrol got underway, but Carwood fell asleep like that, drunk and flushed and truly warm for the first time in ages.

“How are you feeling?”

“You know they cleared me for duty.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“Fine.” At Ron’s look, he added, “Better today.”

“I’m glad you didn’t die on me before I could give you that. You would’ve ruined my plans,” Ron deadpanned, but Carwood caught the undercurrent of concern in his voice.

Ron had prayed last night, hadn’t he? First on the floor, his head bent, and then into the pillow, just little whispers of breath. Even though he had no evidence, Carwood assumed Ron and religion didn’t mix. He’d looked young on the floor, his helmet off, jacket off, scarf still wrapped around his throat. It had made Carwood wonder, as best he could through the fog in his brain, if Ron’s family went to church, and where they went if they did. Did they go every Sunday? Did Ron dislike it, had he been the sort of boy who dragged his feet when he had to put on a suit just to go sit in a pew all morning? Carwood could imagine him at seven, his collar crooked, missing half his teeth, listening to the sermon reluctantly.

Carwood’s family was devout enough; that’s what his mother said when it came up. He always gave the sermon his utmost attention when they went to church. His father had instilled that habit in him - he remembered the hard squeezes on his shoulder, the whispers that he needed to stop swinging his feet in the pew.

Carwood prayed sometimes, prayed before Normandy and in the hospital after Carentan. Prayed in his foxhole, trying to catch the view of the stars between the tops of the trees that still stood. Prayed in Rachamps, although that night he mostly thought about Ron.

“Can I ask about last night?”

Ron blinked. “What about it?”

“You were… we were…” He looked to the floor, kicked at a book with the cover torn off. The memory rose up again, warm and suffused with calm despite his illness. The two of them in the bed together, a real bed with sheets and pillows. Ron pressed up tight, holding Carwood even though he was hacking into his elbow and burning with fever, skin sticky with sweat. Ron whispering something into the pillow when he thought Carwood had gone under. And in the morning, the irrational disappointment Carwood felt when he woke up alone. He felt like he’d sloughed off his skin and emerged a new man, the color back in his face, able to stand longer than a minute. But Ron wasn’t around to see.

Ron frowned. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he said. “I thought it might help. You were shivering so much.”

“I wasn’t looking for an apology.”

Ron didn’t say anything. Carwood felt like he made a wrong turn, asking about this, but he braved forward anyway.

“I just forgot how it felt, being that close to someone,” he said, regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth.

But that made Ron smile the way he had in the convent, with a dip of his head, like he didn’t want Carwood to see the whole thing. He reached out to adjust the watch on Carwood’s wrist. Carwood felt the warmth of his body and wondered if he would press even closer. The same atmosphere from the night before rose up between them, a hint at an intimacy that resisted definition and blossomed in a bedroom with a closed door. Ron stroked his wrist, leaning in millimeter by millimeter, until they were so close Carwood was sure their lips would touch.

But then Ron let go of his hand, as if he remembered they weren't really alone. Perconte and Luz were arguing loudly in the next room. He offered him a smile instead, one that Carwood knew held the promise of a future conversation.

“I’m glad you’re better,” Ron said, “but I think you ought to go back to sleep. I had the sheets changed.”

“I thought I might drop by second platoon, ask how they’re doing.”

Ron sobered. “I need to get started on that letter.”

“He was only twenty,” Carwood said. “He lied about his age to join up.”

“We’re not much older.”

“I just can’t help but feel like he deserved it even less than any of us.”

“Do you want to help? With the letter, I mean. If you won’t just go to bed like you should.”

And so Carwood found himself in the CP’s living room, under a blanket, with Ron leaning over to ask him questions about Jackson what seemed like every other minute. He told him that Dick planned on lying about the second patrol, and the rush of affection Carwood felt for Ron and Dick both made him smile so widely Ron said, “Well, don’t get too excited. Sink might sniff out the lie and demote all of us.”

The weight of the watch felt odd against Carwood’s skin, but he liked it. He liked it even more when Ron finished up and brought two cups of coffee over to the couch. Their men filtered through to congratulate Carwood on “not dying, you sonuvabitch,” and they simply sat together, their legs touching under the blanket, until Ron heard Winters was looking for him.


End file.
